Month: July 2009

What Color is Myrna’s Sky?

Myrna Ulfik’s item in the Wall Street Journal says:

I didn’t run to Canada for [cancer] treatment. Medicare took care of my needs right here in New York City. To endure, I just need the freedom to choose my insurance, my doctors, and get the diagnostic scans and care I need. And one more thing: I need hope that a treatment will be developed that can control my diseases the way insulin controls diabetes.

Every cancer patient needs these things, especially hope. But the government’s plan to reform the health-care system in this country threatens all of this—particularly the development of new treatments.

Most people do not have the freedom to choose their insurance. Most people have insurance that is chosen for them by their employer. Lucky people may have the choice of several plans of varying costs through their employer. Unlucky people have their choice of overpriced and under-providing private policies. Myrna admits that she has Medicare, so she in fact has no control over her primary insurance, only her supplemental insurance. That’s strike one.

Most people do not have freedom, but rather they have limited choices for their doctor and hospital. They can either choose from a list of “preferred providers” published by their insurance company — many of which are closed to new patients and are only listed because they have existing patients covered by that insurer. Or, they can go “out of system” and commit to paying twice as much. This is not an option for most people. Myrna doesn’t address hospital care, but most people have even more limited options there. Why do hospitals advertise at all? The choice is almost always “the one the insurance company picks” or “the one closest to the accident.” So strike 2 for Myrna.

As for diagnostic tests, scans, images, and care, all these things are regulated now not by government bureaucrats, but by insurance company bureaucrats. It is routine for insurance companies to require inexpensive tests before authorizing more appropriate but more expensive ones. This requirement wastes time and money in many cases — time and money that could be helping a patient who is in pain. It is routine for insurance companies to require authorization for many treatments, and this authorization may require your doctor to submit piles of paperwork and sit on the phone for an hour. He could have seen other patients that needed help in that hour. Strike 3 to Myrna.

And as for the development of new treatments, I would like to point out that not a single new drug, not a single new treatment, not a single scientific breakthrough has ever been made by an insurance company. Pharmaceutical companies, research universities, and innovative physicians/scientists will continue to do these things, and their discoveries will continue to be tested scientifically before being administered to the general population.

Myrna goes on to talk about a cancer vaccine that has been held up by the FDA for over 20 years. She points out that if this treatment works, it could already have saved tens of thousands of lives. She has apparently forgotten that sometimes what appears to work in small research patient populations doesn’t work the same way for everybody. She has forgotten the many drugs the FDA has approved which have turned out to be harmful. This list includes but is not limited to Palladone, Baycol, Zelnorm, Rezulin, Trasylol, fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine, and Vioxx. These drugs were all FDA approved, and all happily reimbursed — with an appropriate co-pay — by insurance companies.

People of privilege are trying to scare us by talking about how we could lose things we don’t even have, things most of us have not had for decades. Sadly, most of them are so out of touch that they honestly think everyone has the same privileges in the health care system that they do.

Cross-posted at The Moderate Voice.

In closing: thankfully even the Obama Administration has started calling it insurance reform; don’t let reform get derailed over abortion, a controversial but sometimes life-saving operation; I love Howard Dean; it took economists to tell us that unemployed people can’t afford COBRA?; the political football called the public option; who would Jesus deny health care?; on the role of special interests (hint, it involves lubricant); glad I’m not in Detroit; “Cash for Clunkers” already out of money!; ok, this guy is even more angry at our Congressmice than I am; arcane rules of Congress being debated; GOP misogyny; 2 years into the financial crisis; and can you spare a few bucks for JurassicPork?

“Bipartisan Compromise” = “Everyone’s Screwed”

Here’s the latest news out of our elected whores Senators. Some sell-out DINOs have come to an agreement with some Repugs. The short version:

  1. Employers don’t have to buy coverage
  2. You still have to get coverage somewhere, but where is not their problem
  3. No public option
  4. No such thing as a pre-existing condition

Seriously, the only good point is the last one, and they could have handled that in a 2 page item tacked on the end of any random bit of legislation. It’s not a “reform”, its just how things need to be.

Get real, DINOs, the Republicans want to kill reform, and they will do whatever it takes to do so. They have said this in public! Are you not listening? Do I have to tear up my membership card in the Democratic Party and start sending all my donations to Democracy for America? So help me I will  do just that if this Congress with its elected filibuster-proof majority of Democrats screws We The People.

Insurance companies are doing everything they can to keep from having a real reform go through. They are providing distortions of data to Congressmice, they are running a huge PR campaign, and there will be no sleep for lobbyists on any side of the issue before Christmas. Gee, Big Tobacco and Big Insurance have lobbyists, and feminists want to focus on how porn and prostitution exploit people.

The fact of the matter is that normal people can’t afford coverage — the cost of which sometimes exceeds their paycheck. When they do have coverage, their out of pocket health care costs still often exceed 10% of their annual income. Low wage individuals are unlikely to have access to employer provided coverage, and unlikely to be able to afford individual coverage. The result is kids without coverage ending up with chronic problems, people dying because they can’t afford coverage, people going bankrupt over medical bills, people being sued over the medical bills of relatives in other states.

Businesses can’t afford coverage, and this is making American products and services uncompetitive on a price basis. Because of a combination of health insurance issues and financing issues, it is almost impossible to start a new business right now. And that means no new jobs out of small business, of the kind we saw in decades past. It used to be that unemployment could be an opportunity to take a flier on the next big thing, but who can afford to do that now?

Doctors can’t afford to do business with insurance companies, who often arbitrarily determine what they will pay and what they will cover. A new study says that medical facilities spend “at least $23 billion to $31 billion each year” just in the amount of salary they pay while employees deal with the insurance people. That’s $23-31 thousand million that doesn’t provide any care whatsoever. And it doesn’t even count what it costs the insurance company on the other end to process the claim.

Meanwhile, insurance companies are making obscene profits — which again provides no care whatsoever — doing morally reprehensible things, and Congress fiddles while our system drowns. We keep talking and talking, and those in power keep trying to move the discussion on out to Right Field, which is the only place it makes sense that the for-profit model of health insurance that got us here can somehow get us out. Health care is really too important to be profitable.

The center — the real center, not the made up one they seem to worship in Washington — wants real reform. They want it now. Our Senators need to get up off their worthless rumps and do what the people sent them to do instead of what a few wildly profitable businesses want.

Remember this when the primaries come around.

In closing: externalities; Anti-Abortion Terrorist links himself with Operation Rescue and can’t honestly imagine why they would distance themselves from a bona-fide “hero” like himself; let your fingers do the walking through the state of the economy (what the yellow pages can tell you); I wonder what the Dalai Lama was trying to show President Bush; CSI meets reality; and using unpaid interns to do the work of people who were laid off.

Doubleyou Tee Eff

The world is one seriously messed up place right now.

Cities in the desert are buying hovercrafts.

Cops are assaulting children, arresting Harvard professors for daring to be at home, and tasing people up the @$$ for trying to breathe while multiple officers sit on his back.

The news media is reporting on how many Republican votes Ms. Sotomayor is likely to receive for confirmation, when all she has to do is carry the Democratic votes. That’s the point of being the majority.

Mayors, legislators, and — get this — Rabbis are caught up in a money laundering and organ-legging scheme! It sounds more like the beginning of a joke than an actual FBI sting. You couldn’t run that as an episode of Law’n Order because it is too incredible.

Seven more banks failed this weekend, and nobody is asking how it is that the biggest banks can possibly be doing so well. Could it be that some of those big banks are skimming money off everyone else’s transactions? And of course, screwing all of us little people in the process.

It turns out that Former Vice President Cheney was all for sending troops into American homes and streets to root out terrorists, and he was very upset with President Bush for refusing to pardon Scooter Libby (by golly, Mr. Bush did two things right!). What I hope this is a beginning for is building a mountain of evidence against Mr. Cheney so there are limited political overtones to prosecuting his misconduct.

Jimmy Carter, who I thought was an idiot when I was 11, is now a wise man thirty years later. And he has gotten tired of religion being used as a club with which to beat women down.

Which brings me oddly enough to 4 boys luring an 8 year old girl to a storage shed with a promise of chewing gum and then raping her until her screams attracted attention. When the cops told her parents what had happened, they told the cops to keep her! She — by being a helpless victim who couldn’t possibly have known better — had brought them shame! Even the leader of the country they came from said that was just plain wrong.

That last one is just wrong on so many levels I have no idea where to start. It’s just picking at the yarns until the whole sweater unravels. The nicest thing I can say is that at least it happened in this nation, where we have services in place to help victimized children. In her homeland she would have become homeless, and very likely victimized over and over.

Every time I look at the news, there is something else. I should seriously step away from the computer if things are going to be this way very long.

Next time, stitching together employment, wages, health insurance, and the impending screw-job that politicians are calling health care reform.

In Closing: Pass ID is really no better than the Real ID it may replace; some people will only believe false things more if you try to reason with them; global warming is really real; and this guy claims to be allergic to WiFi. Um, sure.

Shorties Fever

We will all miss Walter Cronkite: A lot of smart people have written a lot of eloquent words on the occasion of Mr. Cronkite’s death — and the subsequent death of TV journalism as we knew it. But only Joe Gandelman has the guts to figure out why TV journalism will never be the same.

Bank Failure Friday: Add 4 to the running tally to get 57 bank failures this year. Notice that no matter how bad things get, the really big banks that helped cause this mess will never have FDIC crews sweep in on a Friday.

America’s Best Schools: They have high minority populations, a lot of kids who need free school lunches, and the kids do a whole lot of moving around. Yet they outperform most American schools! What are our military base schools doing right, and how much of it can we do in civilian schools?

Obligatory Health Insurance Reform Items: Pete Abel on balancing urgency and patience; Open Left (oh how I hate quoting Ian Welsh) on what happened to Canada’s costs when they went to single payor, and what it should mean to us; Ed Stein puts it all in cartoon form; What doctors make, versus what they ought to make (hint, family practice docs haven’t gotten a real raise in over 1o years); Mr. Obama tells Congress to get moving; at least the AMA likes this House proposal; Maha Barbara explains a Cato Institute idea; John Aravosis on health insurance realities you may not have encountered yet; how can I have a batch of health insurance reform links without including Ezra Klein; Dave J on making subsidies mean something.

Citizen Carrie, WHERE ARE  YOU?: Carrie was one of the most knowledgable lay people I knew when it came to H1-B visas. Please, settle for Charles II at Mercury Rising.

Sanity and Taxes: I know taxes as they stand today are complicated, but still people tend to go nutty overboard when discussing tax hikes for the wealthy. This even applies when people aren’t going to be effected at all. So here’s reality on the latest surtax proposal. Moreover, here is how tax brackets work. Galt was an idiot.

Newtonian Economy: an interesting way of looking at the last decade from Distributorcap.

From Newton to Darwin: somebody caught birds evolving. Stuff that in your intelligent design and smoke it.

Game Over, Man!: Will Wright of all people says we need to stop assuming all gamers are 12 year old boys.

Politician kicked out of anti-abortion group for having common sense: his quote, “I can’t figure out for the life of me how to stop pregnancies without contraception. Don’t be mad at me for wanting to solve the problem.”

DHS also trying to exhibit common sense: The Secretary would like to seriously scale back Real ID requirements.

Compute me to the moon: the computers used to get man to the moon were less powerful than a modern pocket calculator. As the song goes, it’s in the way that you use it.

And Last: Hip Hop Home Remodeling.

Man on the Moon

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

In 1961, President Kennedy laid out a goal so powerful that it captured the imagination of a nation, survived his death, and finally came to pass.

A lot of people talk about the importance of goal setting, and they approach it in almost magical tones. They quote Paul J. Meyer and Napoleon Hill (sometimes they mistake one for the other), or perhaps more recently they talk about The Secret, and yet how many of them can say they have had a goal that was so powerful it was taken up and executed by other people?

Say what you want about Mr. Kennedy. The man knew how to set a goal.

On this day, the 40th anniversary of the first manned flight to the moon lifting off, let’s look at what he did right.

The goal was specific, and broken into parts. Both get a man to the moon and bring him home. And do it safely. No “it sure would be  nice if,” no “maybe we could.” Everybody would know when it was achieved, and there would never be a “close enough.”

It had a time limit. By the end of the decade. Not someday.

It was ambitious yet attainable. That goal must have seemed quite daunting in 1961, but they did it in 1969.

He was aware of the obstacles. It was going to cost a lot of money. The technology to do it didn’t actually exist yet. But he knew where to get the money, and how to get the research done to invent the technology.

He had the resources to tackle the obstacles. This is one of those cases where it helps to be in a position of power. The President can make research programs happen; Joe Average not so much. Having a million dollar idea doesn’t mean much if you don’t have the funding and ability to make it happen.

He outlined some of the steps it would take to get there. This is crucial with ambitious goals. He knew that to get there, they would have to develop spacecraft and better fuels and a bunch of other things. If a goal is like a travel brochure, a plan is like a map or plane tickets. You can’t get to the goal without a plan.

He expected the goal to lead to bigger and better things. Namely, the further exploration of space. Perhaps if he were still alive in 1969, he would have urged us to go to Mars, or develop space colonies, or maybe something we haven’t thought about.

He made sure everyone knew about the goal. He made that speech in front of millions of people. In 1962, he reiterated his ideas in another speech before millions of people. He got everybody on board, and got an entire nation excited about his amazing goal.

There is more to goal setting than scribbling “I want to be a millionaire” on a picture of a Porsche and putting it on your bathroom mirror. You can’t achieve goals by hoping and wishing. It takes a plan, hard work, and just a little luck too.

Those Worthless So-And-Sos

House DemocRATS have rolled out a Mandatory Insurance Plan, which does not appear to have a public option. Oh, it does have an “exchange” with a public plan among the options, for those few who qualify to get into the “exchange” in the first place.

The legislation calls for a 5.4% tax increase on individuals making more than $1 million a year, with a gradual tax beginning at $280,000 for individuals. Employers who don’t provide coverage would be hit with a penalty equal to 8% of workers’ wages with an exemption for small businesses. Individuals who decline an offer of affordable coverage would pay 2.5% of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan.

The nicest thing I can say about it is that insurance companies aren’t wild about it either.

Here’s what happens when we have mandatory coverage: crap policies; real policies still unaffordable by anybody except large businesses that are insuring hundreds of people; denied and cancelled policies leaving people scrambling for coverage; insurance bureaucrats sentencing people to death; personal bankruptcy caused by medical debt.

Sure, something must be done, and done now. But this is the wrong thing to do. Think about it.

In Closing: businesses only pay taxes on profits; inflation and the fear thereof; 9th Circuit says pharmacists can have consciences, but pharmacies must fill prescriptions; job losses will trickle down through our economy in a bad way; how to disappear; Geeky Monticello; job offer scams (my tip, employers don’t ask you for money, they pay you money); whatchoo talkin bout Willis Tower?; immigration and crime; living on borrowed money; tax cuts don’t create jobs; and homeless in the suburbs.

The Fiat of Refrigerators

When I was a kid, my parents drove Fiats. There’s some truth to the old joke about what does Fiat stand for? Fix It Again, Tony; the head mechanic at the dealership was named Tony. For a long time, there was a Fiat engine block in our basement (long story, Dad swore the oil pan just fell off). At one point or another, they had an 850 spider, a 124 spider, and a station wagon that I can’t recall the model number (but the interwebs insists must have been a 124or a 131). I’m pretty sure there was another convertible and maybe another sedan in there too.

The last Fiat to grace our parking area was what I recall having been a 136 Brava. It was the first Fiat we’d ever had with Air Conditioning! Oh the modern advances! However, it would be proper to point out that the AC and heat never worked very well in that car. Somehow nobody else considered it an issue at the time. “There’s nothing wrong with your car.” “They all do that.” “It’s perfectly normal.” “Oh come on, it’s not that cold.” In the end it was the problem that got my family out of Fiats altogether.

It was my birthday, and there was a buffet restaurant a ways south of town that would give you a free dinner on your birthday. I was probably 9 or 10, and it was the dead of winter. On the way home, I announced that it was my birthday, and I was riding in front! My father, whose hatred of the cold was second only to Sam McGee, rode in back, teeth chattering. I wish I had thought do to it sooner.

That car was gone within 3 days.

This is not a post about the new management at Chrysler. Trust me, I have stories involving a 1978 LeBaron that are almost that good. This one advertises a “rebuilt transmission”. I sure hope so, since Dad went through 4 trannys (and 7 torque converters) in the time he drove it.

Nope, this is a post about our recently departed Samsung Refrigerator.

We purchased this faux-stainless model new two years ago when we purchased our current home. It really seemed nice sitting in the store. However, once you actually try to put food in it, things seemed different. The layout was sub-optimal, with lots of wasted space. The water dispenser always seemed a bit slow. Some months later the “change water filter” light came on. Replacements were unavailable anywhere in the nation for several more months.

A few weeks ago, we noticed that the ice-maker was not keeping up with our demand. This was frustrating, since among other reasons one needs ice to shake a proper martini. We fiddled around with troubleshooting and reset  buttons.

Tuesday evening, we realized that it was starting to be not-particularly-cold in the fridge. We got out the thermometer and our suspicions were confirmed. At least we found out early enough that I could go get ice and save a lot of the contents of the freezer. A large cooler and a mini-fridge from the garage saved us much greater disaster.

In the morning, we called Samsung to see if by some fluke, our problem might be covered by warranty or recall. The answer could be summed up as “maybe”. I called around to see what a service call would cost. Everyplace I talked to said that they don’t service Samsung appliances because it’s too hard to get parts. Remembering our experience with the filter, I could see their point. Even if it was simple and easily repaired, it can’t be fixed without parts.

Since we have no desire to be without a full-size fridge for weeks while parts come in — assuming we can even find a repair person who will figure out what parts are needed — we purchased a new fridge by noon, and it arrived that evening. It’s a joy to have a cold fridge that actually makes adequate quantities of ice.

A quick search tells me that we are not alone in having problems with these units. While looking, my partner was told that Samsung was “one of our most popular units.” Gee, I’m sorry.

No “in closing” tonight. Have a great weekend.

Tanabata!

Today is Tanabata, a Japanese holiday celebrating a celestial romance. This is the one night of the year that the star-crossed lovers can traverse the Milky Way and be together.

So, let me know if you think Japanfilter needs to be its own topic.

In Closing: maybe it isn’t a good  idea to text message everybody in town if there’s an emergency; world’s oldest Bible now available online; Democratic Senators part of the problem? Remember to email them! Remind them that you vote;  unemployment is up, and hours worked is down; as exciting as what is happening in Iran might be, don’t forget what’s happening (or not happening) in Iraq; and Lynx kittens.

Employer Mandates, Secret Deals, and the Economy

At this point, there is a mysterious “agreement” between Senator Baucus, the White House, and hospitals. The fact that so little is known about a plan from someone who has historically been against any real public option is, in my opinion, suspicious. Since health insurance reform is the big topic for Congress this week, the timing is interesting to say the least.

Remember last week I said that Wal-Mart supporting an employer insurance mandate was suspicious? Well Greg Swann figured it out: an employer mandate for health insurance makes it harder for small businesses to compete with the behemoth. Small businesses are already being crushed under the cost of health care, being driven out of business at a time when our country desperately needs the innovation and jobs that entrepreneurs create.

Senator Schumer — wearing a green tie I might point out — says there will be “some sort” of public option available, but others point out it may be so hard to get into that it may as well not exist.

Thankfully, various groups are keeping pressure on the elected officials who have forgotten that they need our votes as much as industry’s money. They are continuing to pound despite friendly requests to shut the **** up by the Obama Administration.

There are a lot of problems with employer mandated coverage — or simply, mandatory coverage as I have called it for some years. The first problem is that coverage being purchased by employers is the root cause of our current mess! If costs hadn’t been invisible to Joe and Jane Average, change would have been forced years ago.

The second problem is that “we’ll pass a law making employers buy it” doesn’t solve the fact that coverage is too expensive for most small businesses. Fine them all you like, you’ll just put more small businesses — that our economy desperately needs — out of business. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and say that while the banking crisis (caused in part by the foreclosure mess) is the first cause of our current economic woes, the health insurance crisis is the clear second cause. Not only are we spending too much of our GDP on too little care for too few people, it’s making it almost impossible for entrepreneurship to lead us out of this mess.

How does that work, you may ask. It works because small businesses can’t afford to hire the people they need, because the people they need require quality coverage. And unfortunately, Senator Grassley was both tone-deaf and correct when he pointed out that the best way to get good coverage was to get a job with a big company like Deere or the United States Government. If our economy is to be run by a few hundred large companies, that’s viable. However, our economy runs on innovation and growth of small business.

And I haven’t even mentioned the third and most tragic problem with mandatory insurance: children don’t have employers.

However, instead of trying to put together a plan that is what the American people want, we are still hearing scare stories about Canadians — but oddly enough not the French — falling through the cracks (apparently none of these people have tried to make an appointment with a gynecologist lately, that will be 6-8 weeks minimum, dear), we are still arguing about what needs to be done, and we have somehow or another turned this most important issue into an argument about abortion. Sorry, wingnuts, there are still situations where women — as in wives and mothers —  will die — as in become dead and not living anymore — without an abortion. The very idea that life-saving surgery shouldn’t be covered is a travesty. Stuff that in your so-called-pro-life pipe and smoke it.

Tell your Senators and your Congressman. Tell the President too. We need a public option, we don’t need mandated coverage, and we can afford Medicare For All. Heck, I don’t think we can afford not to have a public option that is open to everyone. If it drives our overpriced, for profit health insurance companies out of business, oh well. America’s children certainly can’t afford to maintain the status quo. Remind your elected officials that insurance companies, drug companies, and hospital groups don’t vote, but we do vote.

In Closing: I love this sign; most “crazy cat ladies” don’t have cheetahs, lions, and tigers (no bears, oh my); bank failures week by week (Friday and more takeovers will be here before you know it); speaking of which, why aren’t the Canadian banks having a crisis?; urban farming; more on modern victory gardens; h/t to Susie, real unemployment — when you count everybody instead of just the people taking an unemployment check — is up to 18.7% (um yeah, what was that people were saying about how you can’t possibly compare this to the Great Depression?); h/t to John, could you pass the Citizenship Test (yes, 95%, and congrats to a certain client of mine who recently passed it!!!); thank [diety], the possible end of “too big to fail”; Bank of America makes a mistake, resulting in them banning a customer for life because he had an “irregularity” in his accounts; and not the way you want to meet.

Sorry taking so long to post. It’s been nuts, and I hope to develop a more regular schedule.